Landmark status will preserve the building’s past.
By Lynette Raheb
lynetteraheb@aol.com
Photo by Beyer Blinder Belle
The Bank Note building on Lafayette and Tiffany streets has been rechristened
BankNote.
Denham Wolf Real Estate Services carved a niche for itself as a consultant to non-profit organizations. “Real estate,” the firm declares on its Website, “should support and serve the mission of the organization, not the other way around.”
The purchase of the Bank Note building marks the first time the firm has owned property.
The new landlords have hired Beyer Blinder Belle, an architectural firm with an impressive resume of designs for renovating landmarks, including Ellis Island, Grand Central Terminal, and the Apollo Theater.
Outlining his plans for the building at the February meeting of Community Board 2, John Denham said the renovated BankNote (as the building will now be called) will be a green building, certified according to a scorecard that rates construction materials, water and energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality.
On Feb. 5, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, voted to make the building a landmark. Landmark protection means changes to the exterior of the building must be approved by the commission, and on Feb. 27, Community Board 2 voted to urge the commission to approve Beyer Blinder Belle’s redesign, which calls for replacing the forbidding brick exterior at ground level to give the building a “glassy, welcoming and bright”appearance, with a major pedestrian entrance on Lafayette Ave.
When it was completed in 1911, the American Bank Note building was considered the most advanced printing facility of its time, according to the Landmarks Commission’s designation report. The fortress-like building protected the money the company printed there for countries around the world, along with stamps, stock certificates, bonds and new-fangled American Express travelers cheques.Newer technologies, the arson and abandonment that afflicted the South Bronx in the 1970s and 1980s and the lure of generous incentives from Rockland County led the company to relocate across the Hudson River in 1985.
Soon after, Max Blauner and Walter Cahn bought the building and created the Bronx Apparel Center, attracting garment manufacturers from Manhattan.
With much empty space to fill, they turned to The Point CDC for help and reached an agreement to rent studio space to artists.
As he described the food market and the “wide mix of profit and not for profit organizations,” he envisions as the building’s new tenants, Denham told the community board, “We are proud and excited to be part of the Hunts Point community.”